


Dark Retrospect, part 1:   "I watched it happen.  I made it happen."

by jer832



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Apparent Non-con, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:29:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jer832/pseuds/jer832
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gift that Rose Tyler has been given isn't the simple little bit of pretty chain and beads it seems to be; and when the Dreamers wake hungry, Rose's fantasies and daydreams, and the Doctor's, make a perfect recipe for something dark and sinister that compels them into a real-life fantasy of lust and unconstrained passions. The aftermath is pain and hurt that the Doctor and Rose can't seem to stop inflicting on each other and Jack Harkness. At the center of a maelstrom of emotional torment and devastation, recrimination, guilt, lost faith, and self-loathing is a Time Lord who blames himself for everything</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part 1 of 3. The title is from Nine's dialog in Robert Shearman's "Dalek".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Just Another Typical Day"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Your picnics always like this?" Harkness called out from the rear, where he was covering their getaway with his sonic blaster and a grin as wide as the Doctor's._
> 
>  
> 
> _"Nah," the Doctor said, "sometimes Rose carries the basket."_

  
It was just another typical day for the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Jack Harkness: do some good, run, get caught and thrown in prison, get away, finish that good that they’d started, then run to the TARDIS. The Doctor and Jack had created a diversion while Rose organized the women. Watching Rose Tyler in operation always set a proud grin on the Time Lord's face. One thing the Doctor had learned, and Harkness was finding out: when their twenty-first century spitfire explained freedom and equality and standing up for yourself to a group of downtrodden women, something always came of it.

They were just winding down the running back to the TARDIS phase.

"Your picnics always like this?' Harkness called out from the rear, where he was covering their getaway with his sonic blaster and a grin as wide as the Doctor's.

"Nah," the Doctor said, "sometimes Rose carries the basket."

Rose snorted and elbowed him. He elbowed her back then didn't quite run ahead toward the TARDIS. When he stopped to look back, Rose was in the process of illustrating a Tyler hip-check to the runaway Time Agent.

"Yo, Doc!" Captain Harkness called as he and Rose caught up. "Last one back makes the coffee!"

Jack won the race but made both the coffee and the tea. He'd learned not to let either of those two near the coffee beans. He'd also learned there were times he should make some excuse and disappear, which he did as soon as the coffee was ready. Jack Harkness learned fast. It was a shame the Doctor didn't, and that Rosie let him stay stupid.

"They gave me this," Rose pulled out of her pocket a tangled mass of oxidized metal chain and opaque yellow-green beads and dropped it on the kitchen table. "Said it was to thank me and my men for saving them." She giggled. "You and Jack are my men!"

"I'm not a man, Rose."

"Then you can be my puppy dog."

"I had a dog once," the Doctor mused. "We were nothing alike."

"Ok," Rose considered, her eyes shining, "then how 'bout you just be my alien?"

The Doctor grinned. "Only if you'll be mine."

"How 'bout another cuppa? C'mon, help me make it."

~~

Within the tangled chain on the table, a bead began to lose its yellow-green opacity. It slowly grew bluer, and translucent, until it had turned a deep pellucid blue.

Another bead began to turn.

.

.

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=51499>


	2. "Compulsion"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She was pale blue silk and plunging jeweled bodice, pale creamy skin, sunlit hair, and plump take-me-now lips. He was black leather and raven's feathers. He didn’t stop to wonder in his haze of desire and lust why the most powerful baron in the kingdom would be alone on the moor. Or why she would, and in such delicate finery._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Note: this chapter contains apparently unconsenting sex. It can be skipped if you wish, though the events are referenced throughout "Dark Retrospect".

She was pale blue silk and plunging jeweled bodice, pale creamy skin, sunlit hair, and plump take-me-now lips. He was black leather and raven's feathers. He didn’t stop to wonder in his haze of desire and lust why the most powerful baron in the kingdom would be alone on the moor. Or why she would, and in such delicate finery.

Leather and raven’s feathers, blue silk and jewels were they, and heat and want and need, and he took her on the moor. He threw her down with a shout; with a shout as exultant as his, she wrapped her hands in his long dark hair, and hooked a strong silk-enveloped leg over his empty scabbard and around his thigh, pulling him down with her. 

He pressed a long, leanly muscled leg between her thighs, parting them. Tiny hot fingers fumbled with his laces, opening his breeches. He batted her hands away and she whimpered. With a smile as dark as his eyes, he knelt between her legs and dragged her arms up over her head, holding them in place with one hand as he freed himself with his other. He had planned to remove his clothing slowly, taking pleasure in her reactions as he tormented her with his intention, but he found himself enraptured by her. She stared at him, motionless except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Her huge hazel eyes travelled down his body; and as surely as if they were made of flesh and muscle, they grabbed hold of his cock and his balls and squeezed. The tip of her tongue poked greedily through her smile. He shed his clothes quickly.

His knife sliced through the fine bejeweled satin and rare French silk. His eyes, known by others to be as blue as the topazes hanging off her thin throat amidst the sapphires and platinum, were black and unblinking as they travelled her pale naked flesh, heating it to a rosy blush. He licked dry lips. Then his mouth was on hers, hard and bruising. A feral cry rose from deep in her, and she opened her lips to him, Their tongues fought fiercely but without malice as his strong sensitive hands learned every centimetre of her. Her skin was soft and fragrant and hot, so very hot. He sucked heat from her throat and stiffening nipples. She was his air, his sustenance; he knew he was a dead man without her.

He drove two long fingers into her, hard and deep. She screamed, but she was wet. She clenched around him, and he withdrew. “You like?” he hissed against her cheek, “Want more?” She whimpered and mumbled something into his hair. He turned to ask her what she’d said, easing his hold on her, and she threw herself up and snatched his mouth with a wanton frenzy, pushing her tongue deep inside. She sucked his lip between hers, suckled and bit. The taste of her mixed with the blood she’d drawn.

He slid his fingers into her again, rubbing with rough intention over the swollen bump of want in the folds of her womanhood. He added a third finger and twisted until she squealed. Her muscles clenched so hard around him that her body shook. She raked her nails down his back and bit into his flesh just above his breast, drawing blood again. Oh, but this one was a feisty vixen! He’d have a mark from that. He slammed into her harder, deeper, sheathing himself in her tight heat up to his knuckles. She writhed beneath him, moaning and sobbing breathlessly for some god he didn’t recognize. But she wasn't hurting; he made sure of it. He wanted her to feel everything he was going to do to her. 

She moaned as he slid his fingers out of her, and she mewed, big-eyed and panting, as he sucked her taste off them. Her thighs twitched apart and his cock replied. Sliding onto his knees once again, he pulled her legs up onto his shoulders, spreading them, opening her to him, and positioned himself. He stared down at her. Though he’d never wanted anyone more in his life, he’d never felt so… dirty, so obscenely wrong. He was paralyzed to move, to think. She looked up at him, suddenly silent and docile. His grip on her legs lessened. There was trust and love in her eyes. "No," he rasped brokenly to the seething maelstrom in his brain.

Large powerful hands pulled him off his woman. He rolled and continued on, moving, to where he’d dropped his weapon. But the stranger had anticipated his manoeuver and kicked the sword away. With a shout he rose to attack—and found himself lying on his back on the hard cold surface, trapped between the booted feet of the man. His adversary was tall and fully muscled, and at least as powerful as he. His face was beautiful, his eyes almost blue and deeply sad, and his mouth angry. His hands fisted reflexively and his fists convulsed as if he were fighting a battle with himself. “Cover yourself,” the other rasped in a strange accent, dropping some kind of material over him, then moved from him to his woman. (Yes, she was his woman now, regardless of what this sad-eyed stranger did to her.) He heard his woman scream and threw himself up to avenge her. The sad-eyed man kicked his legs from under him, and he went down like an old man. The stranger held him down with a foot and a good quarter of his substantial weight, then with a knee on his chest.

“The Dreaming Stars did a real number on you, Doctor. This is just to help you relax." 

Something pressed into his neck. He saw the stranger lock his woman’s necklace in a small metal box. Then the world left him.

.

.


	3. "Unraveling"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Tell me you stopped me, Jack,” the Doctor whispered brokenly. "Tell me what I tried to do to her, and then please _ **please**_ tell me you stopped me.”_

 

 

 

 

Jack Harkness saw the Doctor peering tentatively around the kitchen from the doorway and beckoned him in with a steaming glass of tea. The Time Lord threw him a rather pathetic attempt at his usual manic grin, limped to the table and eased himself heavily into a chair. Jack placed the glass in front of him, looked him up and down, and dropped two more lumps of sugar into the tea. If he’d noticed the Doctor’s loosely fisted hands were shaking as they moved to enclose the glass, he didn’t show it.

“What happened, Jack?”

“Bad dream.”

“Mine or Rose’s?”

“Does it matter?”

Two pair of blue eyes met, weary and shattered, and slightly confrontational. Neither man blinked.

“Yes. Tell me, Jack.”

“Where do you want me to start?"

The Doctor slipped off his jacket and stretched the neck of his jumper down, exposing the upper part of his chest. “Here.”

Jack looked at the angry purple human bite wound in the Doctor’s chest above his left nipple with a kind of awed horror. “Does it hurt?”

“What do you think?”

“It...I…you…"

“Did I hurt her? Did I rape her?” Gripping Harkness’s hands, the Doctor pulled him closer. “Tell me, please, Jack,” he beseeched. “How did Rose’s teeth marks get in my chest? You’ve promised to take care of her when I can’t. Did you? Did you stop me from… from…?”

The Doctor’s voice cracked and broke. He tried but couldn’t get it back. He shook his head, tried again and failed again. His hands shook visibly now, and he stared at Harkness with the pleading wild-eyed desperation of a man with little left to cling to.

Seeing the Doctor like this broke Jack’s heart, and it frightened him more than facing the Oncoming Storm ever could. “You didn’t do anything to Rose, Doctor.” Jack put on a salacious smile and tried to joke the Doctor out of it, even knowing full well that it was a colossal mistake. “Actually, it looks more as if—“

The Doctor’s hands were around Jack's wrists, pinning his arms to the table with his alien strength and a burgeoning overwhelming panic, increasing the pressure until Jack thought he might be heading for a fractured bone or two. The Doctor glared at him. Jack stared back, unblinking and stone-faced. Never turn your back on a wounded predator. Never show weakness. Finally, the former Time Agent gave a small quick nod. The Doctor loosened his hold and let Jack draw his arms back. Jack checked himself against any major damage, shook out his arms and worked his wrists and fingers. Keeping his eyes fixed on the Doctor, Jack reached into the pocket of his jacket, took out a small metal box and key, and slid them across the table to him.

The Time Lord broke eye contact with Jack Harkness only after his hands had closed around the little box. He opened it. Inside was the necklace that Rose had been given the day before. Almost all of the opaque green beads had turned a deep sapphire blue, with luminous six-rayed stars that flashed and shimmered in the kitchen light. Some few were the blue of a doleful winter sky. He looked at the mass of delicate chain, star sapphires, and pale blue topazes and chuckled over the idea (or vision, perhaps) of hope-lost blue eyes staring out of star-dappled eternity, through the hand-wrought gates of hell.

“Don’t touch them, Doc! They’re –“

“I know what they are. These were particularly hungry little sods, eh Captain?" He threw Harkness one of his big manic grins.

"Doctor—"

They're Dreaming Stars,” the Doctor said softly, staring at the shimmering star sapphires. All expression was gone from his face now, his eyes closed off to the human. "Regardless of what you hope or desire, what you wish with all of your hearts, the Dreamers' _fantaisie sinistre_ will give you what their hunger has discovered within you, within whatever soul you've prayed is left you-- give you what you deserve.” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard a couple of times. “And when you deserve Hell, their _fantaisie_ can be especially creative.

“It’s a necklace, Doctor.”

“Meaning?”

“Rose wore it. The dream was hers. You had no control.”

The Doctor was across the table, his hands around Jack Harkness’s throat before either of them registered what was happening. “Shut up, Harkness or I’ll—“

“What? Throw me out your air lock for answering your question? It wasn’t you! Now release me and move back to your chair, Doctor, before we both regret it.”

Another staring match. The ubiquitous sparkle was gone from the human’s eyes, the joking adolescent delight. Beneath their brilliant blue, the Doctor saw a creature he knew well, a creature who was cold, rational, and dangerous. He released Jack Harkness and moved back across the table, crumbling into his chair like an old man.

“Tell me you stopped me, Jack,” the Doctor whispered brokenly. "Tell me what I tried to do to her, and then please **_please_** tell me you stopped me.”

“’Mornin’, Doctor. Hey, Jack.” Rose Tyler stood in the doorway in a pair of pale pink satin man-tailored lounging pyjamas and open-toed high-heeled pumps from Earth’s 1940s. Jack couldn't help but smile appreciatively when he looked up to greet her. She was a vision of freshly risen beauty: bedroom-eyed and intermittently yawning, clear-skinned and free of make-up except for lips that wore a luscious red stain and matching fingernails and toenails.

“Good morning, Rosie.” Jack said. "Love the Carol Lombard look. I'd whistle, but I make it a rule not to do anything that'd get me thrown out of an airlock before I've had my second cup of coffee." The Doctor, who hadn't even looked up at Rose yet, showed no reaction to his wisecrack. “In fact, I just may need a third. Like some tea, hon?”

“Thanks, Jack.” Rose gave the Time Lord a searching look. “Doctor, are you—”

”How about you Doc?” Jack said quickly, “You want me to warm yours up for you?” Jack kicked the Doctor’s foot, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was peering into his full cup of tea as if he could already read the tea leaves at the bottom. Judging from the look on the Doctor’s face, Jack figured whatever the Doctor saw started with _Abandon all hope_ and then got bad.

“You look beautiful, Rosie,” Jack elbowed the sullen Doctor. Hard. “Doesn’t she, Doc?”

“Wha?”

“Oh, never mind him, Jack,” Rose giggled. “If it’s not sonic he’s not interested.”

“You’re in a good mood today. Isn’t she, Doc?” He nudged the Doctor. “In a good mood, this morning.”

Rose smiled. “Yeah, guess I am at that.” She scrunched up her face into a Rose Tyler cuteness pout. “But I did have the wildest dream.”

“What kind of dream, Rose?” the Doctor asked without looking up.

“Got your interest at last, Doctor?

The Doctor’s eyes started to move toward Rose, just as he wanted to– oh, how he wanted! But even his eyes hadn’t that right any more. He sank lower into his chair.

Unaware of the Doctor’s distress, Rose leaned a shoulder against the lintel and played her fingers over the wood-like surface. “It’s all kind of hazy," she said, languidly caressing its subtle grain, "but what I do remember...” She smiled distractedly as fragments of her dream passed through the viewer of her slowly awakening mind. The smile grew into a peek-a-boo tongue grin. "Gotta tell you, it was wicked intense!”

“Wicked?” the Doctor asked.

“Twenty-first century Earth expression, Doc,” Jack supplied quickly. “I’m surprised you never heard it before.” Jack kicked the Doctor under the table. “It means _very_. Like, oh, I’m _wicked_ handsome.” He winked. “And wicked _hot_.”

Rose walked over to the men. “Yes you are, Captain,” she said as she scraped a fingernail around the shell of Jack’s ear and down the side of his neck into his buttoned-up collar. "My dream was also wicked hot. I should be blushing as I tell this, but it was all so surreal. I was a princess, I think, all in jewels and silk. And there was this man--a king or a baron or somethin’ like that, but he was dressed like a highwayman, in tight black leather and black jewels. He was tall and wicked handsome and so fearsome and very strong, especially when he… and he—” And she did blush, then; Rose Tyler blushed as deep as her name, from her hairline down to the tips of her toes. “It was like those bodice ripper stories my mum reads.”

“Did he hurt you Rose?” the Doctor asked softly, still not daring to look up at her. “I mean, did you dream that the man hurt you?

Rose smiled at the Doctor’s back, but she winked at Jack Harkness. “Well, there’s hurt and then there’s hurt.”

“Rose!” Jack exclaimed, a little too loudly, a little too quickly. “How about you and I go make us some breakfast?” He all but dragged Rose Tyler to the stove.

As they worked together on breakfast, Rose couldn’t stop giggling. “I really shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”

“Honey,” Jack said, throwing a quick look back over his shoulder at the storm brewing on the horizon, "you really shouldn’t.” The Doctor sat at the table, turned away from them and stonily erect. He wasn't wearing his jacket, and Jack could see that the muscles in his shoulders and back were so tensed he was trembling. His arms stretched straight out in front of him, his splayed fingers pressing into the table so hard that they were the only part of him not obviously shaking. The glass of tea sat untouched in front of him, and the little box of star sapphires lay just past his reach. He seemed to be involved with his own thoughts, paying little attention to Rose and Jack’s conversation; but Jack knew better.

“Yeah, I know it’s a thing a girl and her mum would be giggling and teasing each other about. But Mum isn’t here.” She hugged him. “Good thing I’ve got you for a giggle and hug.”

“No, Rose!” Jack shook himself out of her hold and pulled back.

Rose gave Jack a long, confused look. His eyes darted to the Doctor then to the door; his body turned as if to follow them, then stopped. Jack looked at her. But not at her. As if something in her face would burn him.

“Jack?”

He turned back to the stove. “Breakfast won’t make itself, Rosie,” he said with a poor attempt at a Jack Harkness smile.

“Jack?” she tried again.

Rose’s face suddenly went very pale and her heart stopped. Literally. Both men with their superior senses heard it stop, heard the silence where two…now three…now four beats should have been. She wobbled on her heels. The Doctor’s chair legs scraped the floor, but Rose turned, visibly steadying herself, and called to him, “No, I’m fine, Doctor; stay there.”

Jack studied Rose Tyler. She had grown so pale that he couldn’t miss the flush that started in her cheeks and traveled down, into her chest. _Rosie’s going to be pinker than her PJs_ , he thought. Rose caught him in her stare in her sights in her uneasy but determined scrutiny. “What colour was my dress, in my dream, Jack?”

“Rosie—”

Rose backed up and looked Jack Harkness up and down. “You’re wearing a bit more clothes today than usual. And your shirt is buttoned all the way. Even the collar. Maybe you got a chill last night, hmm Jack?” she asked with a look and a tone that could give answer to her own question. “I asked you Jack, what colour was my dress?”

“Rosie…”

“It was blue,” the Doctor said. He might have said _'Nice to meet you'_ ; he might have said _'It also travels in time'_ , or _'That’s who I am, now forget me, Rose Tyler'_. He said _'It was blue'_ , changing Rose Tyler’s world forever, again.

Rose walked to him slowly. The Doctor stood and turned to wait for her. Rising onto her toes, Rose reached up, took hold of the neck of his jumper and pulled it down, exposing the angry teeth marks on his chest. With a cry, she fled the room.

“Go after her, Doctor!”

The Doctor shook his head. He dropped heavily into his chair and hid his face in his hands.

“Dammit dammit!” Harkness ran out of the kitchen after Rose Tyler.

 

 

 

 


	4. "Bleeding Out"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jack Harkness nodded to himself again, but this was a very different kind of nod. This was a_ You're a fool after all, Harkness _kind of nod._
> 
> * * *

 

 

 

 

  
“Rose, please let me in,” Jack said to Rose Tyler’s closed and, he was pretty sure, locked door. “Oh, Rosie… you can’t really think the Doctor would ever try to force you?"

“Never,” Rose whispered against the other side of the door.

The door muffled Rose’s voice, but Jack heard her clearly enough. He smiled and nodded to himself; yeah, there was more hope for these two than they believed. The TARDIS would let him into Rose’s room; he’d calm her down and take her back to the kitchen so that the Doctor could explain what the star sapphires really were and the kind of dreams they make people have. Once the Doctor helped Rose understand her _fantaisie sinistre_ , those two would have to face what was obvious even to someone like him, who'd never believed true love existed until he'd spent a bunch of hours locked in dungeons with them. Of course, he’d never believed Time Lords existed either, until he met the Doctor. Rosie and the Doctor talked a lot, but they never said the right things, and that stubborn scared old alien should have gone after her himself instead of leaving Jack to do it. Just look into Rose’s eyes and cup her face in that way he did, and say _Rose, you know I’d never willingly hurt you_.

Jack Harkness stopped cold.

He pressed his forehead against Rose's door. The surface was cool and smooth, and the TARDIS had scented it lightly of lavender and magnolias and chips for Rose, but Jack didn’t notice. His shoulders slumped and pain screwed his eyes shut so tightly everything went white. But only for a moment. Jack Harkness nodded to himself again, but this was a very different kind of nod. This was a _You’re a fool after all, Harkness_ kind of nod.

“You know the Doctor could never intentionally hurt you,” he whispered against the door, “but you believe I could.”

Truth can hurt. Some truths are all razor-sharp edges with hardly enough flat surface to wield them, and the wielder bleeds as much as the intended. Jack Harkness bled.

Rose heard Jack through the door, and she bled too. She closed her eyes tightly against tears that didn’t stop and pain that was too raw to open up and look at right away. After a moment, she opened her door. “Jack, only at first,” she said, “but I was wrong. Oh, Jack! I know now– I was so wrong!”

But Jack Harkness was gone.

 

 

 

 

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=51499>


	5. "Lost Innocents"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I'm just a touch telepath; and even if I had full telepathic ability, I would never invade someone's mind. That would be rape."_
> 
>  
> 
> _"Like what you just did to me,"  Jack asked the Doctor, "or to Rose, in the kitchen?"_

 

 

 

 

 

Black combat boots and denim-clad legs sticking out from under the console were all that was visible of Jack Harkness when the Doctor entered the control room.

It was obvious that Jack knew a lot about ships. He had a real feel for the TARDIS and was learning more about her every day. He loved to work on her, and the Doctor had seen him do little things that were not quite maintenance, just to keep her happy. Jack loved her. At first the Doctor hadn't been too sure how he felt about that. But the TARDIS trusted Jack from the start, like Rose had, and it was good to have another pair of hands around. Jack thought fast in a tight spot–which was good because he got into them almost as many times as the Doctor or Rose did–and he'd already shown a good dozen times that he would protect Rose before anything else. To be honest, which the Doctor always was, him being a Time Lord and all, from the moment he had walked through the TARDIS door, Captain Jack, renegade Time Agent, had been proving himself much bigger on the inside.

With a small smile of appreciation he’d never let the human see, the Doctor loped up the riser. He knew Jack could see his feet; he always could see their feet when he was down there. He settled his lanky body against the console, legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. He was more than curious about what Jack and Rose had talked about, but he would let Jack bring it up. He was a Time Lord after all. He had more patience than a human and complete control over his nerves. He could wait.

Well, ok, he was wrong. But there was more to it than that. The Doctor saw that Jack was needing the TARDIS more than she was needing him.

“There’s always only one of four reasons when I’m down there like that, Jack, and don’t hurry up. Something’s terribly wrong with my time ship. I just feel like tinkering. I’m hiding from someone blonde, or from just the whole of the cosmos. Which is it for you?”

“No fifth reason I could be down here, Doc?” Jack’s voice came muffled but amused.

“Yup.” The Doctor put on gruff: “But you’d better not be feeling up my girl, Harkness.”

Something metal dropped. Then Jack Harkness’s mood. The human slid out and rose to face the Doctor, eye to eye. “I’d never feel up your girl, Doctor,” he said softly. “I figured you knew that by now. Guess I was wrong.” He closed the maintenance panel and started to put his tools away.

“We are talking about the TARDIS, aren’t we Jack? ‘Cause she’s the only girl I’ve got. And anyone else worth feeling up– you have too much respect for, to do anything like that. I know you well enough now that I’d bet my life on it, Jack Harkness; I’d bet hers as well.”

“Even I wouldn’t bet on me, Doctor.”

“I’m a better judge of character than you are,” the Doctor stated.

“Better than Rose?” Jack shot at him.

“If she’d disagree with me on this,” the Doctor shot back, “then yes.”

Harkness laughed disdainfully. “Maybe you should check with the girl in question.”

The Doctor peered at Harkness. “What did Rose say to you?”

Jack threw the Doctor a Jack Harkness grin: wide and enchanting, all heartfelt and damned fake. “It’s fine, Doc; Rose knows that you are someone who’d never hurt her.”

Jack went back to the all-consuming task of putting the tools away. With a scowl of frustration, the Doctor pulled them out of Jack's hands and turned Jack to look at him. “What did Rose Tyler say to you?”

Time Lord brain. Fantastic memory. Attention to details. Excellent grasp of English nuance. Maybe a bit of meandering by a well-meaning touch telepath through the unblocked emotional turmoil screaming in a distraught young man. The Doctor suddenly looked as if he was going to be very sick. “At first Rose thought it was you who had attacked her.”

“The cable from the trans-spatial interface to the brake is fraying. You probably should change it now, so you don’t chance the TARDIS some day dropping out of the vortex into Oz or one of the other holes in real space-time just as wicked – literal meaning, not 21st century idiom.”

“Jack–”

“It’s no big deal, Doctor.”

“Captain!”

Jack smiled. Maybe grimaced. Maybe both. “Ah, the crown jewel adorning my sterling-plated character.”

“And the final piece snaps into place,” the Doctor said.

“What?”

“It wasn’t Rose, Jack. As usual, it was all me.”

Jack turned slowly. His lips were a straight line that hinted neither up nor down, and his normally laughing eyes had clouded over like a midwinter sky filled with snow that may or may not come. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned against a railing and waited.

At least Jack wasn’t running away, the Doctor thought, like Rose had done and like he surely would have. Jack was facing him man to man. He would do no less. He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack looked down at it but said nothing. Jack figured that the Doctor’s hand was there as much to keep him in place as to offer physical connection and some comfort. The Doctor knew it was to keep himself from letting his cowardice get the better of him and send him running out of the control room.

”You’re upset because until I finally spoke up and Rose saw her teeth marks on me, she believed you had attacked her.”

”I–”

“Rose was absolutely certain that you had. She remembered it.”

Jack started to speak, then stopped. It was still the Doctor’s dance.

“When we met you, you trusted no one but yourself. From what I know now, it was for a damned good reason: your survival depended on it. But little by little that human girl broke down the walls you’d put up. You let her in, and her kindness and compassion… her love. Your heart welcomed her, and the big bad con man began to think that someone believed in him as a person. If someone like Rose Tyler could believe in you, maybe there was something there worth believing in after all. Maybe you could begin to believe in yourself again.”

“Projecting much, Doctor?” Jack smiled coldly.

“Let’s just say some things helped me learn you faster, Jack Harkness. See, you’ve come to think that Rose would have more faith in you than to think you’d take her without her consent; yet for one moment she did. And it’s killing you.”

Jack pushed up from the rail, more than ready to be out of there. He ended up back where he started, beneath the Doctor’s hand, at the mercy of the alien's strength. The two men stared at each other. Something sparked in the Doctor’s eyes, turning them a shade of blue Jack Harkness had never seen before. The energy and power and dark mysteries of the universe swirled in an alien pair of eyes. For a moment. Then it abated, and Jack was looking into the eyes of a man whose soul was shredded.

“Shoot me now, Jack Harkness,” the Doctor said hollowly. “Take out that fancy gun of yours, shoot a square hole through my head and boil my stupid excuse for brains."

“Maybe I will, Doc,” Harkness said warily, “but first I’d like a little bit of an explanation and a lot of your hand somewhere away from my body.”

The Doctor nodded and let go of the captain. As Jack straightened away from the railing, the Doctor folded in on himself and collapsed against it.

“I was sitting at that table, thinking that, much as I had loved the taste and feel and the...” He shook his head.

“This isn’t going to work unless you talk to me,” Harkness told the Time Lord. “And talking won’t work unless it’s honest. You were saying that as much as you love Rose.”

The Doctor gave a small nod. “I wished I hadn’t been the one to abuse her that way, I wished it would have been someone else.”

Jack Harkness laughed. “You would have killed him.”

“Yeah, probably.” The Doctor looked Jack Harkness square in the eyes. “Since I don’t believe in violence, it would have had to be someone I liked and respected too much to kill. I’d wished it had been you, Jack. And the star sapphires –”

Jack grimaced. “–on the table, and Rose–”

“–at the stove with you. Shoot me now Jack. ”

“Square ain’t painful enough, Doctor. Think I got a setting for irregular pentagram."

“Ouch." The Doctor sighed. "Jack, I am so sorry.”

Time gave the men a moment too fragile to break with words, so they didn’t. They used it to study each other’s character.

“I’ll fix this thing between you and Rose. I promise. She’ll never lock her door to you again, she’ll know she’ll never have reason.”

“Doc, how did you figure out what went on between Rose and me?” Jack reflexively backed away from the alien. “So the legends are true.”

”Depends on which legends you mean.”

“With the strength of their will,” Harkness said as if he were quoting an encyclopaedia, “Time Lords could take a person’s thoughts out of his head and put their own in.”

“Nah,” the Doctor made a face, “that’s just myth. I’m a touch telepath; and even if I had full telepathic ability, I would never invade someone’s mind. That would be rape.”

“Like what you just did to me?” Jack asked. “Or to Rose, in the kitchen?”

The Doctor was stunned. The fantaisie that had been forced on them–emotionally raw, physically real, and so very wrong–had devastated him. Facing Rose in its aftermath had gutted him. And now this! What he had done was so foul, the mere thought almost made him retch. Even if he hadn't planned it, he'd trespassed into his companions' minds and mucked about with their thoughts. Jack was right; it was nothing less than rape.

“Oh, Jack, that I could hurt you like this!” The Doctor's voice broke in a tide of anguish; he was barely able to get the words out of his mouth, though they reverberated throughout his mind in vicious accusation. "What I've done to Rose–”

“No!” Jack broke in. “Listen to me, Doctor: there’s already enough fallout from that damned _fantasie sinistre_ the Dreamers grew. Don't go all _mea culpa_ over something you didn’t intend and had no control over. And you were stronger than they were! Before I'd even got hold of you, your mind was breaking free and you were taking choice back."

"You can't understand, Harkness; I’m a–”

“Fuck it, Doctor!” Jack Harkness finally exploded. “Don’t give me that _I’m a Time Lord I should have_ crap of yours again!" He shook his head. "Doc," he said softly, "isn’t it getting on your nerves as much as mine?”

The Doctor almost smiled at that. “Maybe a little,” he conceded. “I don't know how to apologize for what I've done to you. You deserve far better than you got, Jack Harkness, I think…that is, I… Hell, Jack, you’re a trustworthy man and a good friend, while I’ve been a…a–”

“Shithead?”

The Doctor did smile at that. “Yes. I’ve been a shithead. But I’m going to make this right.”

“Start by staying out of my head.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know yet, Doctor,” Harkness said sadly, “I don’t know.”

 

 

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* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=51499>


	6. "The White Knight's Nightmare"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The fires of galaxies raged within his eyes, fires that could obliterate star systems and would-be lovers. For the first time ever, the Doctor frightened her._

 

 

  
“Rose, please let me in.”

Rose’s voice came through the door. “I’m not dressed, Doctor.”

“Just listen, then, and I'll stay out here; you don’t need fancy dress for that.” Although the Doctor’s voice was low and calm, he spoke faster than usual. The TARDIS would make sure Rose heard him clearly. He didn’t know if he could carry this through to the end if even a pause to take a breath could give him excuse to stop, especially as all the while part of his brain was rent and bleeding out in words… such sick, disgusting words. _Murderer. Genocide. Liar. Alone. Betray. Humiliate. Violate. Rapist._

"I recognized what they were, Rose, the stones in the necklace–not immediately, and I should have. _{betray}_ I knew, Rose; maybe not consciously, but I knew when I–

"We joke and tease each other all the time _{humiliate}_ you and I. I say I’m impressive and you shoot me down. I call you a little ape, although you are one of the smartest, most capable people I’ve ever known, and I mean not just for a human. We both know that’s our mouths talking, not our minds, not our real opinions. I know _{liar}_ you’ve thought of me as a sort of hero since I saved you that first night. Even back at the beginning I knew that you saw me as this alien who swooped down and saved the Earth like some science fiction superhero. _{murderer}_ And maybe I’d appear at what seemed like the last minute and defeat the bad guys, and I’d rescue you just like the fancy-caped _{violate}_ and ruffle-flounced characters in those books you and your mum like to read…just like one of those…those– ”

“Like a white knight on his charger.” Rose whispered it to herself, but the Doctor heard her clearly. He thought maybe Rose was just on the other side of the door. Maybe she was across the room and the TARDIS was making sport of him. He couldn’t blame his ship, after all.

"White." He laughed, and it was ugly. "Yes, of course."

"Doctor?"

“But it _is_ funny, Rose. Here I am, a Time Lord, one of the most impressive minds in the universe, and I couldn’t even get the colour of the outfit right, let alone the hero part. Seems I've gone colour-blind in my old age, on top of being a murderer and molester of innocent women.”

There. It was out.

“What?”

The door opened, and Rose was standing in front of him in a baggy pink terry robe that from the look of it would have fit Leela if she had allowed herself to wear pink.

She looked so young and vulnerable.

“I _wanted_ to be the way you think of me, Rose Tyler; I _wanted_ to be the white knight you think you see when you look at me– _your_ white knight.” He laughed again. It wasn’t any prettier than the last time. “And look what I showed you of myself instead!” He started to cup Rose Tyler’s cheek but pulled back and rammed his hands into his jacket pockets.

"I fooled you. I tried to fool myself, and maybe did for a while. I couldn’t fool the Dreaming Stars. They are sentient, you see, the stones in the necklace you were given.

"The Dreamers go inside a person's mind and weave a fantasy out of what they find–a daydream that's just as real to the person as anything. They took what they found inside us and wove that… that…" But the words jumbled in his mind; he shook his head, hard. "They gave you your Romance heroine, Rose. But when they were inside my mind they found no white knight to ride the moor on a charger and sweep up his _lady faire_ , only me. … _ **only**_ me, Rose. The Dreaming Stars gave you a sad old soldier who's always hiding himself under black leather and so used to violence that he’ll use any opportunity to take what he knows is wrong for him to want and put it down to compulsion, damn the consequences.”

The Doctor exhaled with a broken sound that just barely missed being a moan of pain and wretched grief. “I am sorry, Rose; I am so, _**so**_ sorry I hurt you. No matter how often I say it, it’ll never be enough.”

“Doctor, you–”

“No! Listen to me; because if you interrupt I won’t have the strength to say what I have to, and I’d be hurting you even more. You fought hard, Rose, and I’m proud of you for it. As it is, if it hadn’t been for Jack, I would have hurt you worse than I did. He recognized the jewels around your neck and understood what was happening, and he pulled me off you. The details are still fuzzy, but I know I was an animal. Jack stopped me then held me back when I tried to go after you again."

“No, Doctor–”

“I couldn’t bear you knowing what I did to you once you realized it wasn't a dream. The necklace was on the table next to me, and… Rose, I used the star sapphires to go into your mind again and make you think it had been Jack. Jack’s too much of a gentleman to put lie to what I did, but you figured it out on your own.” He sighed. “You’ll remember everything clearly in a few hours, and when you have nightmares of being held down and an animal forcing himself into you, it’ll be my face you see.

“This is your white knight, Rose: first I tried to rape you, then I raped your mind to hide it from you.”

“No! You're wrong, Doctor, please!” Rose sobbed. “Stop, please stop!”

But he didn’t. Deafening himself to Rose’s tears and pleas, the Doctor kept on, ripping his hearts out and giving them to Rose Tyler in self-recrimination with dire warnings against staying with him.

Rose tried to stop him. She reached for him. He pushed her away. She shouted and screamed, trying to cut him off. He cupped his hand over her mouth and jaw and talked louder, drowning out her kind-hearted well-intentioned nonsense. She tried to cover his mouth to stop the words, and he pulled her arms behind her back, forcibly restraining her until he knew it had to hurt.

Her robe fell open and he was preternaturally aware that Rose was naked. He pulled her against him, crushing her breasts against his chest and his pelvis into her soft belly. Their bodies touched seamlessly… intimately… just like the night before, when the Dreamers went inside his sick, dangerous mind and Rose's young trusting one and bound her romantic fantasies of love onto his baldly erotic fantasy that she hungered to have him inside her as much as he had always hungered to be. In an instant his member was hard, straining against the rough denim, urging itself to Rose's naked skin. He burrowed his face into the soft golden waves that fell about her shoulders, breathed her musky warmth with deep shuddering want. He threw himself into the reactions of his body to the unintended erotic touch of Rose's. Just as he had done their night that wasn't real, the Doctor drowned himself in the feel and scent and heat of Rose Tyler, and lost himself in the fires that raged through his groin and the fever in his brain and his blood. His arousal burned throughout him, ready to explode into a moment of unrestrained physical taking. Then he hid it all away like precious jewels, along with his ripped-out hearts and the few shards of hope the Time War had left behind... locked it all away inside his handmade hell.

“Look at me, Rose." Holding her chin firmly, he raised her head and didn't let her look away.

Rose searched the Doctor's eyes for some sign of _her_ Doctor. She saw neither the love she wanted so desperately nor the lust she'd seen the night before. Even his usual fond tenderness was gone. The fires of galaxies raged within his eyes, fires that could obliterate star systems and would-be lovers. For the first time ever, the Doctor frightened her.

Even so, her body responded to his. From almost the moment she’d met the Doctor, Rose had dreamed of him holding her close, his magnetic eyes burning with love and desire, his lips on hers, tenderly at first then pressing into a long, passionate, bruising kiss. Their bodies would be aligned and primed for each other just as they were now, and unable to do anything but join. It was wrong to give herself to the sensations cascading through her, but Rose couldn't care. Thanks to those damn sapphires, there’d be nothing like this ever again, and no hope of forever with him.

“Look at your white knight, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said sadly, all fire suddenly gone from him. “Look at the alien saviour of Earth. Superior Time Lord brain? Unrivalled Time Lord ego. I’m nothing but a sick joke on the universe! I’m so much worse than the rest of the Time Lords.”

The Doctor sighed again, but it ended in a sob that he barely got under control.

“They might have been able to make the difference," he whispered hoarsely against Rose’s cheek, as if saying it any louder were a sin. “I begged them. I warned them. They did nothing until it was too late. Nothing, Rose, and I hated them for it. At least they only did nothing, and in the end they were also victims. But I–” His body shook violently; it shook Rose’s. “They knew what I was, they were right to think I had the… darkness… the _filth_ in me, necessary to finish it. They just didn’t know I would ruin even that, the way I’ve ruined everything. The way I ruined everything I had with you."

The most powerful, most brilliant, most loving creature that Rose Tyler in all her fantastic travels would ever know, turned lost, wretchedly sad eyes on her.

"Why didn’t the Universe take me too?” he asked softly.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut and fought to control the turmoil in her mind so that she could think how to soothe the turmoil in the Doctor's. Since the day they had watched her planet die and he'd told her about the death of his, she had known that something unspeakably horrible had bloodied the Doctor's good soul and broken him. What she had done to him was so much worse! He had told her he was alone, and she had promised she would be there for him. He trusted her. In his own way and as much as he was able, the Doctor loved her. But she couldn’t accept what he offered; she wanted more. Selfishly and thoughtlessly, she had tried to take what she wanted. She had vowed to him, at least in her heart, to be his lifeline out of hell; instead, in her lust and arrogance she had undone that lifeline with the laces of his clothes.

Even if she hadn’t loved this man with all of her breath and soul and heart, she couldn’t keep him hurting like this. She had to make him listen to her. She hadn’t a clue what to say, but she knew it would have to be the most important words said between them since _‘Run’_.

Her arms were suddenly free. The hard proof of the Doctor’s desire disappeared, along with the cruel and glorious pressure of his body. Her eyes flew open. The Doctor had gone.

She started to laugh. “Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler. Run for you life.”

Rose collapsed against the wall and slid, helpless to stop herself. By the time her body hit the floor, she was crying uncontrollably.

 

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* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=51499>


	7. "The Dreamer's Fantaisie"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"What colour was my dress in my dream, Jack," she had asked; getting no answer, asked him again._
> 
> "It was blue," _the Doctor said; and across the kitchen, at the stove, Rose's head had snapped around to stare at him. She'd felt Jack's hand come down on her shoulder but ignored it. Jack Harkness didn't matter any more ..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter describes Rose's flashback in the kitchen that morning, to the events in "Compulsion". They are explicit, tempestuous, and driven by the Dreaming Stars without the knowing and full free consent of Rose and the Doctor. If the chapter makes you uncomfortable, it can be skipped, though the acts are referenced in through the story and in the reveal.

 

 

 

 

 

"... It was blue," the Doctor said.

Across the kitchen, at the stove, Rose's head snapped around to the Doctor. Jack's hand came down on her shoulder but she ignored it. Jack Harkness didn't matter any more.

Although the Doctor was hunched over the kitchen table with his back to Jack and her, his head bowed just about into his chest, Rose knew she hadn't misheard him. Something jabbed at the back of her mind, trying to burrow its way through the lingering dream-spun fog of her satiated passion and neurochemically-induced lethargy. She shrugged off Jack's tightening grip and started back to the kitchen table, back to the Doctor.

Strange, the things a person remembers– the soft sensuality of silk pyjama against her legs and ankles, and the heels of her pumps clicking on the floor like an old-fashioned wind-up watch measuring the distance by seconds rather than meters; the groan of the Doctor's chair as it slid away from the kitchen table and the sigh of the leather seat when his body came up off of it; his long, lean torso, evident without the ubiquitous leather jacket to confound her; the straight and perfect horizontal line of his shoulders as he turned and looked at her; and the empty, lifeless look of his face.

Not a muscle moved in the Doctor's body. His chest barely registered his respiration, or maybe he just didn't breathe. His expressive ice-and-fire eyes weren't simply shuttered that way they could be when he didn't want to let her in… or himself out…they were empty. He was empty. Her Doctor was gone.

Rose had once seen on the telly a story about a condemned murderer who’d confessed his guilt, asked for swift justice, and refused clergy and absolution. The man’s face was blank and his eyes focused nowhere in the present, as if his spirit had already left the useless unanimated shell behind and moved on, lost to any kind of salvation, without hope or fear, to eternal damnation. Standing before her like that, the Doctor reminded her of that man.

Her recollection of the day before was fuzzy, the details like some messily scribbled afterthoughts across the margins of her consciousness, illegible and useless; but she knew it had been just another typical day of trouble, rescue, and making things right for the people who needed them. What had happened to make the goofy-grinned, quirky, compassionate, caring Doctor look at her as if he were dead inside? Spiritless and lost…so lost! Rose had seen him talk about the War and losses he could barely speak. She had seen him in the heat of anger; she'd seen him act with a cold detached fury. She'd seen him wretched, morose, even haunted; but nothing like this.

Rose didn't know much about aliens and nothing about the Doctor's people, but she knew the Doctor. This hollow shell wasn't her Doctor. She loved him so completely that the thought of anything doing this to him made her physically ill. She had to do _something_ to fix whatever had been broken inside him.

Steadying herself against the table, Rose went up on her toes, reaching for him. He looked down. Their eyes met, and suddenly she was sick beyond anything she’d felt before in her life. She had remembered.

They went down fast, in her dream.

[But it hadn't been a dream, had it!]

_She wrapped her leg around the stranger in black, refusing to go down without the scent of his leather and sweat and want in her head and the feel of him between her thighs. They went down fast and lay winded and surprised, the both of them. He hesitated over her, his body tensed and stiff, his breath coming hard and broken, as if he were struggling to regain his control. The press of his body against hers changed–the feel of him–and the cadence of his breaths deepened. She felt his leg judder against her thigh and thought Yes, at last! In an instant decision, she opened her legs; promising him with that action anything he could want, offering him everything she needed him to take from her._

_She ripped out the laces that bound him inside his leather breeches, thinking to free him. She hoped her fingers around his shaft and sack would convince him that it was right to free all the passion she knew he had bound up tight within himself._

[How could she have known that, and not known the rest? Or had she known all along? Was her real intent simply to destroy the Doctor’s control and break him?]

_He pushed her hands away, and she thought he was done with her. She wasn’t good enough for him, not worth even the bother of a quick leg over. But then, oh! then his firm body slid atop her, and he grabbed her wrists with almost brutal force and pulled her arms above her head. As he held her fast, she thought how could this stupid ape ever think that she'd fight him! Couldn't he sense that holding her down, pinning her body beneath his, centimetre to centimetre, unable even to struggle, was sending a miraculous cascade of sensation throughout her?_

_She burned for her first sight of him; and when he’d finally done with freeing himself, her eyes feasted. He was more beautiful than she could have imagined. Her mouth was suddenly dry, but elsewhere... Oh, she was_ so _wet!_

_Was he as unashamedly wet as she? Did he ache to taste her? Did he want to claim her and mark her for all to see: THIS is mine! Did he dream of sucking her and making her come in his mouth with a ferocity she'd never felt before, screaming his name? Did love burn in him, making him both weak and strong at once?_

_She loved this beautiful stranger and was compelled to tell him, and to show him the need that drove her–show him in ways she was only beginning to imagine._

_Unsheathing his knife, he cut her out of her clothing. His eyes travelled her body slowly. She noted the physical evidence of her effect on him with smug pride. His plump nipples grew dark and stiff with want, his hearts pounded against his ribcage, and his eyes were the colour of lust. His mouth took hers in a fever. She allowed his almost punishing ardour because it thrilled her and because she was his. But she gave him to understand in a way neither his body nor his hearts could misconstrue that he was hers just as surely as she his. She was so ready for him to enter her, and so sensitive to him that she knew the thunder of his blood through his arteries, the trembling overly-tight coil within his core, pleasure on the knife edge of pain, and the quiet longing within his mind's turmoil of dark passions._

_His need pressed hard and hot against her side. But his fingers whispered over her, softer than silk, and gentle. He confused her. He was unlike anything a man clad in raven feathers should be. Why did his fingers tread in such tender caresses? He should breach her, take her! Why didn't he fling her over the edge in a screaming frenzy and leap after her? She wasn't some beatific figure of devotion–she was fire and need and hunger!_

_Before she could wonder further at his strange and in truth unwanted gentleness, two fingers entered her with such a hard and forceful suddenness that she screamed. She called him god and kissed him, and told him she was his with words of love and faith and need, first in English then in a language she didn’t know, but knew their import. Wanting more, needing deeper, she drove her pelvis up, impaling herself further onto his long fingers, and wrapped her legs around him, grinding against his slim hips. She rode his long cool fingers wantonly and with no shame, every thrust of her hips slamming her against him and forcing his fingers deeper. She writhed against his cock, willing him to fill her. Her fingers tormented his balls. She intended to drive him to a wanton insanity the equal of hers._

_With a feral growl, he slammed his fingers into her, meeting her thrust for thrust, and whispered dark promises against her breast. She had loved him forever and would always be his. But he was hers, and she told him! She marked him: no other woman would have him. If he tried to leave her, ever, she would… she would…_

_If he left her it would kill her._

_The driving ecstasy of his mouth and fingers eased, and he looked at her as if coming out of a fugue. Thinking he might speak words she couldn't bear to hear, she twisted a hand into his hair, pulled his head back down to her and covered his face with bruising, biting kisses. Her legs hooked around him and held him. Uncaring of the blood she drew, she raked her nails down the length of his back and arse as she bore down around his fingers, clenching fiercely as she fondled him. His hearts stuttered against her chest, and she wondered that he might just die from her._

_Some rationality she hadn’t yet destroyed in him and his physical strength pulled his body from her. Her eyes found his. She willed him to see inside of her, to see what was obvious. He stared down at her for an eternity, his eyes full of lust and sadness and confusion and…shame?_

_Then with a shout he was gone and another man was standing over her. She couldn’t stop herself from trembling He ripped her necklace off her neck and was gone, and she prayed the thief would be satisfied with only her jewels. She heard her lover scream, and stars exploded like supernovas in her brain. She threw herself on their attacker, cursing him and beating him with her fists and her feet and all the strength of her driven, tormented soul. The attacker pulled her off as if she were weightless, held her down, and covered her with a warm heavy covering. He didn't touch her familiarly. He didn't touch her at all. As her body quieted, he took her up and held her like a father holds a child. "Hush, honey, it'll be ok."_

She must have cried herself to sleep in Jack's arms.

She stood at the kitchen table, looking up at the Doctor–and that she could still face him was a testimony to her determination. Shaking, unable to breathe, too distraught to trust herself, she used the poor man for balance (though that was nothing compared to the use she'd put him to last night) as she rolled up onto her toes and reached a trembling hand toward his naked throat. Rose was already certain that she’d forced herself on the Doctor and had tried to seduce him, that she might have raped him if Jack hadn’t gotten him away from her. But in some perversely narcissistic kind of masochism, she _needed_ to see the mark she had put upon the person she loved most in the universe, branding him her innocent victim and her a wanton tramp, a user, and a would-be rapist. She pulled at the neck of his jumper, stretching it down his chest, looking for the wound. She saw her bite mark on his chest, his ripped flesh… her desecration of the most compassionate and giving hearts that could ever live. Then she ran.

For one night the Doctor had wanted her the way Rose wanted him–he had shown it in the way he looked at her, the way his body covered hers and his mouth consumed her. His want had been a lie. His grunts of carnal pleasure and the blissful moans that wove through hers had been seduced from him. She'd tricked him, coerced him, body and mind. To her greatest shame and anguish, Rose honestly didn't know if, given the chance, she wouldn't do it again.

 

 

DARK RETROSPECT continues in [PART 2: "COWARD. ANY DAY"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1132763)

 

 

* * *

 

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=51499>


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